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Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research Volume 1, Issue 2, 2014, pp. 12-26 Available online at www.jallr.ir ISSN: 2376-760X
Correspondence: Zahra Shiriyan, Email: z_shiriyan@yahoo.com
© 2014 Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research
The Effect of Literature-response Activities on the
Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency of Iranian EFL Learners’
L2 Oral Productions
Zahra Shiriyan
MA in TEFL, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Najafabad, Iran
Dariush Nejadansari
Assistant Professor, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the effects of literature-response activities on oral
production of Iranian EFL learners, focusing on complexity, accuracy and fluency. The
participants of this study were 40 female EFL learners in a language center in Iran. They
were divided into two groups (n=20), one experimental and other control group. Some
pieces of short literature reading texts with interesting content and with appropriate
readability were given to the experimental group in order to motivate them to think and
talk about their similar experiences. On the other hand, non-literary was studied by
students. ANCOVA tests revealed that literature-based activities improved the complexity,
accuracy and fluency of Iranian EFL learners’ oral performance. The findings of this study had
several pedagogical implications which might be beneficial for teachers, EFL learners,
materials developers, and curriculum designers.
Keywords: literature-based activities, complexity, accuracy, fluency, L2 oral production
INTRODUCTION
Oral communication has been considered as an important skill and mastering this skill
is regarded as an ideal achievement. Speaking in a second language (L2) is a complex
process. To convey meaning a leaner must decide simultaneously what to say and how
to say it. According to Levelt (1989) to communicate orally learners have some
challenges with some cognitive processes while conveying messages according to
situation and purpose, choosing correct rules and appropriate words, evaluating
mechanical articulation as phonetic and intonation, and monitoring for accuracy or self-
correcting if necessary.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2014, 1(2) 13
Focusing on above mentioned issues, to gauge oral performance operationally, Skehan
(1998) distinguished three significant components: complexity, accuracy, and fluency
(CAF). At first blush, “complex language is more elaborated, accurate language is error-
free, and fluent speech is normally paced” (Ellis, 2003, p. 340). However, when looking
deeper into each element, these subsystems are intricate and multidimensional and
specialists of L2 acquisition (SLA) vary on how these components should be
characterized and operationalized (Housen & Kuiken, 2009).
Oral communication is also of importance because it has two vital functions. One is
transactional function, in which the primary focus is on the exchange of information.
The other one is interactional function, of which the primary purpose is to establish and
maintain social relations (Brown & Yule, 1983). In transactional function the primary
focus is on the message, whereas interactional function primarily focuses on the social
needs of the participants. To improve speaking ability, interaction has an essential role.
However, this function is highly sensitive to motivation, self-concept, anxiety and
attitudes of the learners.
If we want to take a step back to scrutinize the role of literature in in an ESL context, we
have to reach the literature response theory by Elliott (1990). In his article, he
emphasized the importance of developing student-response and literary competence.
He accentuated that literature will only be motivationally operative if learners can
genuinely engage with its thoughts and emotions and realize its aesthetic values.
Accordingly the main point of the Reader Response Approach is to urge learners to
response to the text and express their thoughts, notions and emotions. Consequently,
learners should appreciate that the main concern is not “what they understand” but
“how they feel” (Amer, 2003).
As mentioned earlier, improving the speaking skill is one of the most challenging tasks
for teachers in EFL contexts. Mastering speaking skill in terms of accuracy, fluency and
complexity has been considered as an ideal achievement for teachers and learners.
However, in Iranian EFL environment there are EFL learners whose achievements in
oral communication is not so significant.
The one effective way may be the use of literature response activities (Zundel, 2003).
Meantime, it has been claimed that empathy in children may be limited as lack of
exposure to stories (Pinsent, 1996). According to Alderson (2000), texts that convey
meaningful and interesting messages for readers that interest them, that identify with
their education background, intellectual level and so on, may spur a deeper perusing
than the conventional, generally anodyne or even endless text. In fact ‟speakers tell
stories to maintain social relationship, to entertain each other and to share and
exchange daily experience. Speakers might also pepper the story with evaluative,
emotive or colorful expressions that indicate their own attitudes as well as those they
anticipate from their listeners” (Burn, 2001 cited in Martinez 2006, pp.247, 248).
The Effect of Literature-response Activities on the CAF of L2 Oral Productions 14
Consequently, there is great motivation to accept that literature response activities as
appropriate instruments for raising learners’ emotional intelligence.
The literature response activity which is emotionally related to the experience of
students has recently attracted the attention of the researchers in foreign language
teaching (e.g., Abdolrezapour & Tavakoli, 2011; Shao, Yu, & Ji, 2012). Moreover, it has
been proven that there is significant relationship between CAF measures and emotional
intelligence (Abdolrezapour, 2013; kohi, et al, 2014; Shiriyan & Nejadansari, 2014) and
alternatively, it seems that these activities can enhance learning achievement. However,
as far as language learning in the EFL context is concerned, how literature response
activities improve learners speaking ability in the oral interactional context needs more
empirical investigation. This study intended to fill this gap.
THE PRESENT STUDY
One of the greatest challenges facing language teachers is that of creating new and more
productive ways to help students develop commutation skills (Lewis, 1997). In Iranian
EFL context there are many learners whose achivement in oral communication is not so
significant. This means that even after several years of study, their oral interaction lack
of the expected complexity, accuracy and fluency. To develop oral communication,
interaction plays an essential role. However, this function is highly sensitive to
motivation, self-concept, anxiety and attitudes of the learners. One solution may be the
use of literature response activities as a source for topics of oral discussions in the
English class. However, to date, investigating the role of literature response activities on
L2 oral production has received scant attention.
Therefore, the current study was designed to see if exposing EFL learners to literature-
based activities had any effect on Iranian EFL learners’ speaking ability in the terms of
fluency, complexity, and accuracy. Following the above mentioned lines of research, the
present study tried to address the following research questions:
RQ1. Does exposure to literature-based activities have any effect on the of
complexity Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions?
RQ2. Does exposure to literature-based activities have any effect on the accuracy
of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions?
RQ3. Does exposure to literature-based activities have any effect on the fluency of
Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions?
Based on the above questions, the following hypotheses were formulated:
H1. Exposure to literature-based activities does not have any effect on the
complexity of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions.
H2. Exposure to literature-based activities does not have any effect on the
accuracy of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2014, 1(2) 15
H3. Exposure to literature-based activities does not have any effect on the fluency
of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions.
METHOD
Participants
A total number of thirty intermediate female EFL learners who enrolled in a language
center in Isfahan, Iran took part in the study. Their ages ranged from 16 to 23. They
were supposed to be intermediate level according to the institute level structure.
However, to make sure about their proficiency level, intermediate-level learners were
selected for the study based on a version of an Oxford Placement Test (OPT). All
Learners were native speakers of Persian and they had taken English courses for four to
five years. One class was randomly assigned as the experimental group with 15 students
and the other as the control group with 15 students.
Instrument
Oxford Placement Test (OPT)
In other to determine students proficiency level, OPT (2001) was administrated. The
test contained 60 multiple choice items, and it was used to enable the researcher to
select intermediate level participants. This test consisted of grammar (20 items),
vocabulary (20 items), and reading comprehension (20 items).
The speaking ability test (interview)
To assess the subjects’ speaking ability before and after the experiment, the researcher
devised and administered two similar speaking tests in terms of genre and difficulty
level. Each of the speaking tests consisted of two parts. The first section was an oral quiz
extracted from the book Interchange 3 (Richards, 2005) which was considered for
intermediate level learners. This quiz consisted of ten questions of high frequency in
every conversation such as family, free time, hobbies, field of study, etc. The second
section was an oral descriptive task. The speaking task focused on the examinees’
abilities to communicate their emotions and ideas, situate themselves in someone else’s
position, and influence other people’s emotions and thinking. Participants were
required to complete each section of the oral test in 2 minutes. The topics of the
speaking tests were based on the common background knowledge of all students. Their
oral performance was recorded for re-listening and also transcribing.
Reading texts
To stimulate students’ speaking motivation, some pieces of highly emotional short
stories were given to students in the experimental group. They must also participate in
oral discussion tasks in which the contents were tuned with the literary texts. Then,
they were encouraged to talk about their emotions. The readings allocated to the
The Effect of Literature-response Activities on the CAF of L2 Oral Productions 16
experimental group were selected from the books such as Steps to Understanding (Hill,
1980), Anecdotes in American English (Hill, 1980), The Seven Habits of Highly Effective
Families (Covey, 2004), Bottom Line Underwriters (Hargrove, 1997). The readability of
each text was calculated separately. For all of the extracted texts the Flesch-Kincaid
reading ease score was higher than 90 (0 to 100, higher is best).
In addition, the texts for the control group were adopted only from The Selected Reading
(Gundersen, 2011). To select reading texts for the control group, attempt was made to
select reading passages that included no emotional words or content.
Measures of L2 oral performance
As Skehan (1996) has pointed out, the general goals for language teaching are to
develop fluency, complexity, and accuracy in learners' production. These three aspects
have also been used to measure the quality of language production in various studies
(e.g., Wigglesworth & Elder, 2010; Zabihi, Rezazadeh, & NejadAnsari, 2013; Zabihi,
Rezazadeh, Vahid Dastjerdi, 2013). For the present research, those measures which
were more popular and similar to related studies were used to analyze the transcribed
data.
Complexity: Following Wigglesworth and Elder (2010), proportion of dependent clauses
per AS-unit was used in order to measure the complexity of L2 productions. AS-unit is
defined as “a single speaker’s utterance consisting of an independent clause, or sub-
clause unit, together with any subordinate clause(s) associated with it” (Foster, Tonkyn,
Wigglesworth, 2000, p. 365). AS-unit is a syntactic measure which according to Foster
and Skehan (1996) is a reliable measure, correlating well with other measures of
complexity.
Accuracy: Accuracy refers to “how well the target language is produced according to its
rule system” (Skehan, 1996, p.23). There is greater agreement among researchers with
measures of accuracy (Tavakoli & Rezazadeh, 2014). In this study, one general measure
of accuracy was used: the proportion of error-free clauses of all clauses (Skehan &
Foster, 1999; Yuan & Ellis, 2003). In the current study, error was defined as deviance
from standard norms with respect to syntax, morphology, and/or lexicon.
Fluency: Following Skehan and Foster (1999) fluency was measured by calculating the
number of words per minute. In this study words and phrases that were repeated,
reformulated, or replaced were excluded. Therefore, the number of meaningful syllables
within each descriptive task, divided by the number of seconds used to complete the
task was multiplied by 60.
Procedure
The intermediate level participants, chosen based on OPT results, were randomly
assigned to two control (n=15) and experimental (n=15) groups. In order to accomplish
the aims of this study and to scrutinize the oral ability of the participants in the pretest,
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2014, 1(2) 17
the participants of both groups were interviewed. As was mentioned before, the
interview consisted of two sections. Participants were required to complete each
section in 2 minutes.
Students in the experimental group were given some short literary reading texts with
the ends left open before each class. The goal of Such arrangements was to stimulate
their interest and build their expectations for the lesson. Then, they were asked to speak
about their own similar experiences for 4 minutes. To provide motivation, the
treatment was supported by emotional and motivational short stories which followed
by related subject for discussion, as how to be happy, how to be socially successful,
speak about your favorite characteristics or a favorite person, and how to deal with
impossible people.
In contrast, students in the control group were given short passages devoid of
emotional words and content and taught under the ordinary procedure of English oral
class, for instance, vocabulary and grammar learning, manipulating fixed patterns,
summarization, etc. They also had discussions based on the content of their readings. All
of the readings assigned to both groups were not more than a few pages.
All participants in this study were required to attend a 10-hour English course per
week. For the experimental group, 2 hours were devoted to emotional designed
materials. They had altogether 24 specially designed English-speaking lessons (16
hours) while their counterparts in the control group had the equal amount of ordinary
English class with the same instructor. At the end of eighth week, i.e. after the treatment,
a similar speaking ability test was administered to both groups as the posttest.
Data Analysis
After collecting the required data, a number of statistical tests were performed to check
the research hypotheses. SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) Version 19.0 was
used to perform all the statistical analyses in this study. This study had a pretest-
posttest control group or nonequivalent control group design. Therefore, to examine the
hypotheses, a series of analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were carried out on CAF
scores to see if exposure to literature-based activities had any effect on the complexity,
fluency, and accuracy of learners’ L2 oral productions.
Moreover, to determine inter-rater reliability, ten oral recordings were randomly
selected from the data. A PhD student and the researcher coded the data according to
the above mentioned measures. Inter-rater reliability was determined by looking at
percentage agreement between the raters. Pearson product moment correlation
coefficients for the scores of the two coders ranged from .92 to .81.
RESULTS
As indicated earlier, this study was designed to see if exposing EFL learners to
literature-based activities had any effect on their speaking ability in the terms of
The Effect of Literature-response Activities on the CAF of L2 Oral Productions 18
fluency, complexity, and accuracy. The results of ANCOVAs are reported separately
comparing the results on the measures for fluency, complexity and accuracy for the
experimental and control groups.
Results for the complexity of L2 oral productions
The first research question addressed the effect of exposure to literature-based
activities on the complexity of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions. In response to
this question, hypothesis two was formulated which is examined in this section.
In order to investigate this hypothesis ANCOVA was conducted. The scores on the
pretest were treated as a covariate to control for pre-existing differences between the
groups. ANCOVA asks this question: If the complexity pretest scores are hold constant,
will there be a significant difference between the complexity posttest scores for the two
experimental and control groups?
Prior to running ANCOVA, preliminary assumption testing was conducted to check for
normality, linearity, homogeneity of variances, homogeneity of regression slopes, and
reliable measurement of the covariate, with no serious violations noted. In addition, the
minimum alpha for confirmation of the research hypothesis was set at .05. Below, the
adjusted motivation posttests are presented in Table 1 and the result of the ANCOVA is
summarized in Table 2.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for complexity scores (adjusted posttests)
Group Mean Std. Error
95% Confidence Interval
Lower Bound Upper Bound
Control Group 1.568a .114 1.334 1.802 Experimental Group 2.141a .114 1.907 2.375
a. Covariates appearing in the model are evaluated at the following values: Complexity Pretest = 1.5370.
Table 2. One-way ANCOVA of learners’ complexity scores
Source Type III Sum
of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig. Partial Eta
Squared
Corrected Model 5.798a 2 2.899 14.853 .000 .524 Intercept .351 1 .351 1.797 .191 .062 Complexity_Pretest 3.654 1 3.654 18.722 .000 .409 Group 2.456 1 2.456 12.581 .001 .318 Error 5.270 27 .195 Total 114.262 30 Corrected Total 11.069 29
a. R Squared = .524 (Adjusted R Squared = .489)
As reported in Table 1, the experimental group outperformed the control group as far as
adjusted complexity scores were concerned. Moreover, the results of the ANCOVA,
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2014, 1(2) 19
shown in Table 2, indicate that there is a statistically significant difference between the
control and experimental groups regarding the complexity posttest scores, F = 12.58, p
< .05, partial eta squared = .318. Therefore, Analysis of the results revealed that the
complexity of the learners’ L2 oral productions were significantly higher when they had
exposure to literature-based activities. Consequently, the first null hypothesis is
rejected.
Results for the accuracy of L2 oral productions
The second research question tried to investigate if exposure to literature-based
activities had any effect on the accuracy of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions.
Subsequently, the second null hypothesis was made in reply to this question. One-way
ANCOVA was run to examine the difference between the experimental and control
groups with regard to accuracy scores. The scores on the pretest were treated as a
covariate to control for pre-existing differences between the groups. Adjusted posttests
are presented in Table 3 and ANCOVA results are demonstrated in Table 4.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics for accuracy scores (adjusted posttests)
Group Mean Std. Error
95% Confidence Interval
Lower Bound Upper Bound
Control Group 49.197a 1.325 46.478 51.917 Experimental Group 63.869a 1.325 61.150 66.589
a. Covariates appearing in the model are evaluated at the following values: Accuracy Pretest = 48.3000.
Table 4. One-way ANCOVA of accuracy scores
Source Type III Sum
of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Partial Eta
Squared
Corrected Model 3652.192a 2 1826.096 69.711 .000 .838 Intercept 81.007 1 81.007 3.092 .090 .103 Accuracy_Pretest 1667.658 1 1667.658 63.662 .000 .702 Group 1596.232 1 1596.232 60.936 .000 .693 Error 707.275 27 26.195 Total 100240.000 30 Corrected Total 4359.467 29
a. R Squared = .838 (Adjusted R Squared = .826)
As reported in Table 3, the adjusted posttest mean scores for the experimental group
was higher than the control group. In addition, the results of the ANCOVA, illustrated in
Table 4, showed that this difference between the two experimental and control groups
is statistically significant, F = 60.93, p < .001, partial eta squared = .693. Therefore, the
results indicated that accuracy scores gained by EFL learners in the experimental group
are significantly higher than those in the control group. Based on the obtained results, it
can be concluded that as far as accuracy scores are concerned, the students in the
The Effect of Literature-response Activities on the CAF of L2 Oral Productions 20
experimental group outperformed those in the control group. Consequently, the second
hypothesis is rejected.
Results for the fluency of L2 oral productions
The third research question addressed the effect of exposure to literature-based
activities on the fluency of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions. Subsequently, the
third null hypothesis was made in reply to this question. In order to investigate this
research question, an ANCOVA was carried out since there was a two-group
pretest/posttest design. As in previous sections, prior to running ANCOVA, preliminary
checks were conducted to ensure that there was no violation of the assumptions. Table
5 reported the descriptive data of fluency adjusted posttest scores with regard to each
of the control and experimental groups. Additionally, ANCOVA results are demonstrated
in Table 6.
Table 5. Descriptive statistics for adjusted fluency pretests and posttests
Group Mean Std. Error
95% Confidence Interval
Lower Bound Upper Bound
Control Group 71.851a 3.968 63.709 79.994 Experimental Group 88.675a 3.968 80.533 96.818
a. Covariates appearing in the model are evaluated at the following values: Fluency Pretest = 71.8463.
Table 6. One-way ANCOVA of fluency scores
Source Type III Sum
of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Partial Eta
Squared
Corrected Model
9958.411a 2 4979.205 21.155 .000 .610
Intercept 770.155 1 770.155 3.272 .082 .108 Fluency_Pretest 7120.559 1 7120.559 30.252 .000 .528 Group 2107.497 1 2107.497 8.954 .006 .249 Error 6355.032 27 235.372 Total 209579.523 30 Corrected Total 16313.443 29
a. R Squared = .610 (Adjusted R Squared = .582)
Table 5 shows that the adjusted mean of posttest scores are greater in the experimental
group than in the control group, suggesting that exposure to literature-based activities
resulted in more fluent L2 oral production. But the significance of these differences
needs to be checked in the Table 6. The results of the ANCOVA, illustrated in Table 6
revealed that, after adjusting for pretest scores, there is a statistically significant
difference between the two groups regarding the fluency scores, F = 8.95, p < .05.
Therefore, based on these findings, deductions can be made that exposure to literature-
based activities lead to more fluent L2 oral production. Thus, the third null hypothesis is
rejected.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2014, 1(2) 21
DISCUSSION
In what follows, the findings obtained regarding each hypothesis will be discussed in
turn. The first null hypothesis addressed the effect of literature-based activities on the
complexity of Iranian EFL learners’ oral production. Results of the present study
provided evidence that the complexity of the learners’ L2 oral productions were
significantly higher when they had exposure to literature-based activities. This finding
confirms Denny and Hunt’s (1992) claim who argues that emotionally charged
materials produces more vivid and long lasting memories than those to which no
feelings are attached.
It seems that we are in position to make claim that Literature-based activities offer a
vivid memorable authentic context in which learners can increase their grammatical
and lexical knowledge. Moreover, findings with regard to complexity indirectly confirms
result of studies, Morrow (1984, 1985, 1986), and Zimiles and Kuhns (1976). In these
studies, researchers explored effect of some literacy activities on children’ oral
performance. They asked the learners to recall sections of a text or a story by utilizing
some literacy activities. Each investigation discovered a significant improvement in oral
language complexity.
The second null hypothesis stated that exposure to literature-based activities does not
have any effect on the accuracy of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions. Findings
with respect to accuracy suggested that literature-based activities benefited accurate
oral performance and learners in the experimental group remarkably produced more
accurate sentences. This finding confirms the results reported by Dujmovic (2006), who
pointed out that literature offers a natural and interesting medium for language
acquisition by predictable and repetitive patterns that reinforce vocabulary and
structures. However, to discuss precisely, the result of this study can be explained
regarding the interaction of three variables for promoting accuracy. Literature response
activities as source of interesting authentic materials may guarantee simultaneously
three factors for language acquisition in general and oral interaction as particular (i.e.,
comprehensible input, output and crating low risk condition for interaction). Therefore,
considering literature-based activities as a source of input, the findings with regard to
accuracy is in line with Cadorath and Harris (1998), Ellis (1985), Gajdusek, (1988),
Krashen (1985), and Swain (1985).
Arthur (1968) recognized that syntactic information and vocabulary enrichment can be
expanded rapidly through literary texts. In other words, literature involves a profound
range of vocabulary, dialogues and prose (Van, 2009). In addition, Gajdusek (1988)
points out “comprehension never occurs in a vacuum, and the reader’s prior knowledge,
experience, and even emotional state are an important part of the process by which
meaning is created” (p.231). This point is also recapitulated by Cadorath and Harris
(1998) who state that the “text itself has no meaning; it only provides direction for the
reader to construct meaning from the reader's own experience” (p. 188).
The Effect of Literature-response Activities on the CAF of L2 Oral Productions 22
One key characteristic of literature activities is creating a context for interaction.
Literature response activities can lower the effective filters within a meaningful
interactive communication context in which keep a seat of effective learning. Allwright
(1984) concerns interaction as the “fundamental fact of classroom pedagogy” because
“everything happening in the classroom happens through a process of live person-to-
person interaction” (p. 156). Literature response activities as bedrock for interaction
provide a context for comprehendible input and accurate output, which simultaneously
guarantees sources of input for other interlocutors.
The third research question addressed the effect of exposure to literature-based
activities on the fluency of Iranian EFL learners’ L2 oral productions. Results showed
that exposure to literature-based activities led to more fluent L2 oral production which
led to the rejection of the fourth null hypothesis. This finding seem to provide support
for Sarceni’s (2003) idea that oral work based on literary texts can help to improve
students’ speaking skills. Likewise, the results for fluency corroborate those found by
Krashen (1985) who stated “when the students' anxiety level is lowered and their self-
confidence is increased, it is very probable that they would become more fluent” (p. 5).
One reasonable explanation for the contribution of literature-based activities to
learners’ better performance on the speaking ability post-test could be referred to the
affective and cognitive accounts of the oral process. As mentioned before speaking
performance highly depends on top-down processing (Richards, 2007). In this process
background knowledge is essential for understanding the meaning of the message. In
this regard, a previous knowledge about the topic of discourse, a situational and
contextual knowledge, or even the emotional state of learner is an important part of the
process by which meaning is created (Gajdusek, 1988).
CONCLUSION
The purpose of the present study was to provide insight into the effect of literature-
based activities on the fluency, complexity, and accuracy of learners’ L2 oral
performance. The conclusion drawn from the findings of this study is that exposing EFL
students to literature-based activities can help them perform significantly better in their
L2 oral performance in terms of complexity, accuracy and fluency.
Several important pedagogical implications can be raised from the findings of this study.
Firstly, this study was primarily undertaken to cast light on the issue of literature-based
activities to determine whether it should have a role in L2 speaking. If foreign language
teachers methodically introduce and reinforce these activities, the learners will
significantly improve their performance on L2 oral tasks. In addition, material
developers and curriculum designers are required to pay special attention to new
materials and techniques that could help learners improve their speaking, and lead
them to more effective learning.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2014, 1(2) 23
A number of limitations come to light in interpreting the results of the present study.
First, research on using literature-based activities to improve learners’ L2 oral
performance is just at the beginning, and some limitations need to be concerned when
interpreting the findings of present study. Though the data are collected for the analysis
seems to be persuasive in validating the results, care needs to be taken since this study
involved a small number of participants (N=30).
Second, it seems to be no unanimous agreement on the measure of complexity, accuracy
and fluency. This study used one measure for each one of the aspects of performance.
Hence, the question remains whether other measures might change the result. Third, all
the participants in this study were female adult learners (aged 16-23). The present
findings, therefore, may not be generalized to learning contexts involving male language
learners.
The current study also leaves some room for other potential issues for investigation.
The following recommendations for future research are based upon the results of this
study. First, this study used literature-based activities to develop learners’ L2 oral
performance; still future research can explore the impacts of other materials such as:
movie clips, TV shows, drama, etc.
Second, identical topics were used for oral discussions in this study, i.e. literary texts
were used as the source of dissuasions. The topics used in the current study raised
learners’ personal emotions in relation to imagined situations. Therefore, more
research needs to be conducted that assigns topics comparable to those used in this and
previous studies in order to further verify the findings with regard to L2 oral
production. Finally, to improve learners’ L2 oral performance, this study used an 8-
week instruction program. Longitudinal studies can be done to determine the effect of
literature-based activities over longer periods of time.
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